In commerce, a hypermarket is a superstore which combines a supermarket and a department store. The result is a gigantic retail facility which carries an enormous range of products under one roof, including full lines of fresh groceries and apparel. When they are planned, constructed, and executed correctly, a consumer can ideally satisfy all of their routine weekly shopping needs in one trip to the hypermarket.
The concept was pioneered by the United States Fred Meyer chain, which opened the first hypermarket in 1931 in Portland, Oregon. Fred Meyer is now part of the largest grocery store chain in the United States, Kroger.
After the successes of super- and hyper-markets and amid fears that all smaller stores would be forced out of business, France enacted laws that made it more difficult to build hypermarkets and also restricted the amount of economic leverage that hypermarket chains can impose upon their suppliers (the Loi Galland). Large retailers for the most part work around the law by using loopholes. As of 2004, the Loi Galland has become increasingly controversial and there have been calls to amend it.
In Japan, hypermarkets are generally situated everywhere, regardless if it urban or not. The Japanese government encourages hypermarket installations as mutual investment by financial stocks are a common way to run hypermarkets. In a japanese hypermarket, you could see restaurants, 'Manga' (Japanese cartoon) stands, an Internet cafe, typical department store merchandise, a full range of groceries, beauty saloons and other services all inside the same store. More recently a new concept of crossing the "dollar shop" concept and hypermarkets resulted in the birth of 'hyakin plaza'. Hyakin or hyaku en means 100 Yen (roughly 1 US Dollar).